Ad mortem festinamus

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Ad mortem festinamus is a medieval dance song that has been preserved in the version known under this title in the Llibre Vermell de Montserrat from 1399. While this version puts the line Ad mortem festinamus, peccare desistamus (“We rush towards death, do not want to sin”) at the beginning, there is an older version in a French manuscript from 1267, which follows with the one in the Llibre Vermell Words Scribere proposui ("I have decided to write ...") begins, under which title the song is also known.

The church's Latin text of the song is about contempt for the world and the desire not to sin again in the face of inevitable death. The music historian Otto Ursprung used this song in 1921 to propose the thesis that Spain was the country of origin of the dance of the dead , but this was rejected by the dance of death researcher Hellmut Rosenfeld . Rosenfeld explains that ad mortem festinamus "even if it was sung by Montserrat pilgrims to dance, it is not a dance of death song, but a penance song". The text was added to the dance melody only afterwards. In addition, the emergence in Spain is not certain.

Two stanzas of the student song Gaudeamus igitur have close textual parallels to Ad mortem festinamus and Scribere proposui , whereby one of the stanzas in question is missing from the Montserrat manuscript.

The song was set to music several times, including in 1992 by the Middle Ages electro band Qntal on their album Qntal I , and in this form was successful among “Middle Ages fans” and followers of Gothic culture .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Hellmut Rosenfeld: The medieval dance of death . 3. Edition. Böhlau, Cologne / Vienna 1974, ISBN 3-412-39974-4 , pp. 160-162 .
  2. ↑ a b Hellmut Rosenfeld: The medieval dance of death . 3. Edition. Böhlau, Cologne / Vienna 1974, ISBN 3-412-39974-4 , pp. 161 .
  3. ↑ James J. Fuld: The book of world-famous music . 5th edition. Dover, Mineola, NY 2000, ISBN 0-486-41475-2 , pp. 241-242 .
  4. ↑ Interview with Michael Popp from Qntal . Back again. 2008. Retrieved April 15, 2011.